


oh the flash then the silence

by addandsubtract



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-23
Updated: 2009-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-25 19:57:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/addandsubtract/pseuds/addandsubtract
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This might hurt a bit.” Neville’s voice is brisk but not uncalm. He’s proud of himself for that. He’s gotten better with the blood in the past months. People are harder than plants. Messier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	oh the flash then the silence

**Author's Note:**

> this is an au somewhere around the 5th book. mostly, I just wanted to write about a different course the war could've taken, minus the horcruxes and the trio's search for them.

“This might hurt a bit.” Neville’s voice is brisk but not uncalm. He’s proud of himself for that. He’s gotten better with the blood in the past months. People are harder than plants. Messier.

“Bloody fuck,” Harry says, and pulls breath in through his teeth, flexing his arm, curling his hand into a fist. His fingers are sticky with drying blood, but the hex didn’t hit any tendons or arteries, thankfully. Neville ties off the stitches and cuts the thread with his teeth.

“You’re lucky,” he says, and tucks the needle safely away. They only have two, and fetching more would only lead to more trouble. “But then again, you’re always lucky.”

“You’d think after six months of this, it’d be something other than luck,” Harry says, and holds still while Neville wraps rewashed bandage – old bedding, actually – around his forearm. It’ll keep the bleeding staunched, but there’s not much else Neville can do. He’s not a healer. He doesn’t know the spells.

“Sometimes it is,” Neville says, and tries not to look at Harry’s blood drying under his fingernails. “When are Hermione and Ginny due back?”

“Soon,” Harry says, voice curt. He still hasn’t learned that a commanding officer doesn’t need sound forceful, he just needs to sound like he knows what he’s doing. Neville doesn’t say anything, though. Harry’s just as scared as the rest of them, if not more. The burden is, after all, on his shoulders.

He wants to ask _is there news of Draco?_ , but he knows it’ll just set Harry off. Draco missed rendezvous; there was nothing else Harry could have done. Still, Neville can’t help but think of how steady Draco’s hands were when he’d cleaned the burns on Neville’s back. Draco, who hadn’t had a nice thing to say until three months into seventh year.

“Need anything for the pain?” Neville asks, mostly to distract himself. Harry shakes his head no, staring down at his arm, pressing his clean fingers against the covered wound. Neville goes to find Ron.

 

+

 

“Neville –” Hermione’s voice is level, and Neville can tell from her expression that she’s about to politely tell him to shove off. She won’t mean it like that, of course, but that’s what it’ll be, in the end.

“No,” Neville says, surprising himself. “I know you’re preparing, I’m not a total idiot. You’ve missed class twice this week, and if _you’re_ skiving, Merlin only knows how Ron is doing.” He pauses, and doesn’t mention the bruises he saw Ron sporting in the dorms, and the ginger way he’d favored his left ankle. Hermione just raises her eyebrows. Neville decided to talk to her first because, honestly, he knows that she’ll see the logic. She’s always been the smart one, and everyone knows it. “I know you don’t need my help,” he says, “but I need to help you. I couldn’t live with myself if you went traipsing off into danger and I sat here, doing nothing.”

Hermione doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and Neville isn’t going to take it back, but he starts to think about what he might do if she does turn him down.

“You’re wrong.” Neville balls his hands into fists. But she just says, “We do need you.”

She pats the seat next to her at the table, and pushes a book his way. Neville doesn’t need to be told twice.

 

+

 

Ginny’s a quicker flier than any of them, even Harry, and so she’s the one that often ends up taking the message runs. The floo network isn’t reliable, and even if it were, they’re often too far out of range for it to be easily accessed anyway.

She storms in just after two AM, and the banging door has Neville drawing his wand from under his pillow, a hex on his lips. They’re all hair-triggered – Ron’s standing already, the scar down his chin white in the half-light, and Harry’s halfway up, wand in hand. Hermione is in the next room, where she usually shares with Ginny, but she’ll have been roused by the noise. Ginny just huffs in the doorway, catching her breath, and then says, “I’ve just got back from the checkpoint. Seamus and Dean found Draco. They don’t have him, but they –”

“We’ll get him,” Harry says, and his eyes are too green, wild and awake.

“You won’t,” Neville says, shrugging on his shirt. “You need to be here, for the equinox.”

“We can’t just –” Ron says, and bites off his words halfway through the sentence.

“I don’t know about you,” Neville says, “but while I like Draco, Vo– You-Know-Who is higher priority. We only get one chance, and then we have to wait another six months. Maybe a year.”

Harry leans back, not pouting, precisely, but resigned. Ron’s looking at his knees, and Ginny’s yanking off her cloak, her movements almost angry. The three of them are the most likely to act without thinking. It’s why Neville is glad to have Hermione around.

“We can’t just leave him there.” Harry’s words, like most of what he bothers to say these days, are bitten off like hard jerky.

“We won’t,” Hermione says from the doorway. “But first we have to know more about where he is.”

Hermione shoots Neville a look that’s mostly gratitude and partially amusement. Neville remembers to put down his wand.

 

+

 

Draco turns up at a meeting he isn’t supposed to know about sometime in the middle of November. He’s wearing an old robe, as ragged as he owns, and he says, “So you’re going to kill the Dark Lord.”

Ron and Harry are on their feet before he’s even finished talking, Ron’s wand drawn, Harry settled into a defensive position. They’ve been working on hand-to-hand for two weeks now, nightly, and the positioning is starting to become instinct more than teaching. They’re taking shifts at night, and it’s Ginny’s and Hermione’s turn to sleep. It’s always two and three, constantly rotating.

“How’d you know where we’d be, Malfoy?” Ron growls, face flushing at his cheekbones like it does when he’s angry. Neville’s on his feet, but he’s waiting to see how things play out. Draco has been out of sorts for a month at least, withdrawn, and Neville knows he isn’t the only one who’s noticed.

“Followed you,” Draco says with a shrug. He doesn’t sneer, but his face is clenched and cold, his jaw tense. “Do you know how to do it, yet?”

“I don’t see why we should tell you,” Harry says, his voice quiet. He’s got a bruise on his chin from where Neville punched him earlier, and his eyes are narrowed. He looks dangerous.

Draco doesn’t say anything for a long time. Later, Neville will know how long it took him to even walk into the meeting room, how hard it was for him to say the things he said.

“I want to help.” Draco’s voice, if anything, is quieter than Harry’s. Desperate. Neville isn’t expecting that from Draco, isn’t expecting need of any kind. He wants to ask _what changed?_ , but he realizes that he’s not even sure anything did. He doesn’t know Draco at all.

“Let him,” he says, and he’s not sure he can articulate what makes him say it. Something to do with the tension around Draco’s eyes, and the way his fingers look so pale and vulnerable sticking out from the ragged sleeves of his robe. Something about the edge in his voice.

“Neville?” Ron’s tone is dubious, questioning, and Neville just shrugs.

“Trial basis only, maybe. We could use the extra hands.” _And the extra spells_ , he thinks, wondering what Lucius has taught Draco. What Draco has learned for himself.

“We have to talk to Hermione and Ginny,” Harry says to the room at large. “Come back tomorrow,” he directs at Draco.

 

+

 

It’s Ron’s plan, and he’s the strategist, which is probably why it takes so long to go to shit. Like all plans, though, eventually it does.

“Incoming,” Hermione yells, huddled behind a desk in the Malfoys’ library. The mansion isn’t actually being used by the Malfoys anymore, but it still houses most of their possessions.

Neville’s cradling his left arm against his chest, trying not to jar it. It’s definitely broken, though he’s not sure how bad the fracture is. He’s just lucky it’s not his wand arm. He’s pretty sure that he’s got at least two cracked ribs. He’s had worse.

The spell hits the wall and shatters it, plaster flying in shards everywhere. Ron and Ginny are in another wing, hopefully under less heavy fire.

“Ready?” he asks, scrambling across the floor the join Hermione. She nods, her face set grimly, lips pressed into a tight line, and gestures to her left. Their signals are rudimentary and obvious, but, despite their best tries seventh year, they are not military trained.

They duck down the hallway to their left, firing hexes over their shoulders for cover, and press back against the wall.

“How far?” Neville asks. His arm is throbbing, and he’s pretty sure there’s a nick bleeding on his forehead. The blood and sweat are getting into his eyes.

“Not far yet,” Hermione says, and leads the way. They have about 45 seconds at most until the Death Eaters try again. “Let’s go.”

 

+

 

Draco’s better than any of them but Harry at Dark Arts. Hermione is a close third, and Neville’s gaining fast. Ron’s better at other subjects – strategy, for one. None of them have ever beaten him in a game of chess. Ginny’s faster and more agile than any of them, which is handy enough in hand-to-hand combat.

“This isn’t enough,” Harry says, frustrated, pacing the length of the room. Neville just watches him and breathes in deeply. It’s a common rant.

“We don’t know what the fuck we’re doing, Potter,” Draco says, aptly. “We have no plan. Without a plan, there’s nothing to work toward.”

They’ve all been thinking it. None of them have wanted to bring it up. Harry’s grown increasingly temperamental, angry, volatile.

“I _know_ ,” Harry says. And then, softer, “I know.”

“So we’ll work on that,” Neville says, reasonably. “Research. A plan of action.”

Draco looks at him, then, and his expression is, for the first time, warm. Surprised, but pleasantly so. Neville can’t help but think that he should look like that more often.

 

+

 

They do, eventually, find Draco. His back is in ribbons, scabbed and inflamed, and he’s got a black eye and a split lip.

The worst, though, is that they’ve cut the tendon in his right thumb. Wand hand. Neville looks at it, the thumb tucked against his palm like a baby bird’s wing, and doesn’t know how to fix it. Doesn’t even know how to begin. There is no St. Mungo’s now; there is nowhere to go. Hermione takes one look at it, and makes a noise in the back of her throat. She slices the ropes binding his arms and legs, but doesn’t seem to have anything to say. Neville knows that they have to go, that the route secured by Ron and Ginny won’t last, but he can’t help looking at the lumped scar, healed but _wrong_ , and feels his throat tighten.

“Don’t say anything,” Draco says, voice hoarse. “Don’t say a fucking word. Just get me out of here.”

“Okay,” Neville says, letting Draco lean on his shoulder. He gets them moving out the door, ignoring the fire in his arm and his ribs. He’s better off than Draco, anyway. His will heal.

 

+

 

“We’re not getting _anywhere_ ,” Harry says, slamming his hands palm down onto the desk. Neville looks up, idly, and sighs.

“We’re doing all we can, Harry,” Hermione says. She’s got a stack of books to her left and one open in front of her. They’ve been looking for any past writing on magical bonds, how to break them, how to forge them, how to control them. So far, it’s slow going.

Instead of sleeping and fighting, they trade off fighting and researching. Ron, Draco, and Ginny are combat training. Ron’s the biggest of them, just a shade taller than Neville himself, and more muscular besides. He’s best matched with Ginny’s speed.

Ron and Draco haven’t precisely settled scores, yet, but they’re tolerant enough. Hermione figured the fighting would be better for the tension. They don’t have much time, and they have to work as a team.

“It’s not enough,” Harry says, and slumps down in his chair. “Nothing’s going to matter.”

“You keep talking like that and you’ll definitely be right.” Neville’s sick of reading book after book, too, but he knows better than to complain. “Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that.”

Harry’s fists are clenching spasmodically against the tabletop. The circles under his eyes make him look like he’s been punched in the face, and Neville knows that they should all be sleeping more, but when do they have the time? You-Know-Who isn’t going to owl them and arrange a date for the big battle. They have to be ready.

Still, he’s not sure they can be ready like this. If things stay the way they are, they won’t make it through the year. He closes his book with a soft thump.

“Nothing’s going to get solved like this,” he says, when Harry looks up at him. Hermione nods, once, like she understands, and she probably does. “We need sleep.”

“We’re not going to get anywhere if we’re too tired to be civil,” Hermione adds, and Harry looks at his fists, chewing on the inside of his lip.

“Fine,” he says. “Sleep it is.”

“I’ll get Draco and the others,” Neville says, and stands.

 

+

 

The cloth is wet and cool in his good hand, and Draco gasps against the pillow, face down on the bed, as Neville cleans the wounds as best he can. It’s been two days, and Draco’s fever hasn’t broken yet. Neville would’ve thought if they’d bothered to heal his hand, they’d have taken care of his back, too, but probably they just healed it that way so it couldn’t be fixed later. It’s certainly a cruel enough move.

Neville’s kept the slices in Draco’s back as clean as he can – poultice on the worst of them, but no stitches, just tightly wrapped bandages and regular cleanings. Ron and Harry were called off by McGonagall the day before and haven’t returned yet, so Neville’s been sitting by Draco’s bed to give himself something to do. They’re not expected until the day after tomorrow, so Neville’s not going to worry until then. When Draco wakes for a few minutes at a time, Neville tries to get him to drink, eat a little. It’s slow going.

“Neville,” Hermione is in the doorway, gesturing at him. Neville looks down at the raw flesh of Draco’s back, and rebinds the bandages, quickly and carefully.

“Are you alright?” Hermione asks, and hands him a cup of tea. Neville’s still got blood on his good hand from Draco’s back, but the other is tucked to his chest, unusable in the sling, so he just dirties the porcelain and feels guilty about it.

“Fine. Why?” Neville takes a sip of the tea, and wonders idly if the cut across Hermione’s cheek is going to scar. They all have a few by now, some of them more than others.

“You’re spending a lot of time watching Draco.” There’s no reproach in Hermione’s voice, though Neville’s not sure he would be able to hear it if Hermione didn’t want him to.

“Nothing else to do,” Neville says, and shrugs one shoulder. It’s not the whole truth and they both know it, but there’s no point in saying it out loud.

Hermione sighs. “I still don’t know how to fix his hand. McGonagall doesn’t have a healer to spare, not that we could get him there if she did.”

“We trained for this,” Neville starts, and they did – Neville, particularly, is much clumsier with his non-dominant hand, but he can do what needs doing.

“Yes, but not writing? And you know how hard some of the finer spell work is without dominant hand use. We need him for more than that.” She’s chewing her lip a little, like she does when she’s thinking, and doesn’t like the conclusions she’s coming to.

“We’ll figure out what to do about that when we have to,” Neville says, and sighs. “For now, I’d just like for his fever to break.”

“I know,” Hermione says, and squeezes his shoulder. Her hair is wild and long, and she looks beautiful like this – some kind of Amazon, maybe, war-tested. Fierce. Neville knows that whoever gets her will be lucky. “Go,” she says. “Help him.”

 

+

 

“Pinned,” Neville says, marking the end of the skirmish. He’s breathing heavily, and Draco’s flushed pink and sweating on the floor beneath him. Neville rolls off quickly, and finds his feet. Draco sits up, pushing the hair out of his face. Neville can see the quick rise and fall of his chest.

“Fuck,” Draco says. “Wasn’t expecting that.”

“Next time you will, then,” Neville says, and shrugs. Draco gives him a measured look, like he doesn’t know quite what to do with Neville altogether. Ginny should be back any moment, and they’ll have to start over again. Two on one is always the hardest.

“When did you get so self-assured?” Draco asks, and Neville doesn’t know how to answer that.

“You’ve never bothered to talk to me before now,” Neville says, though there’s no hostility in his voice. “How do you know I’ve changed?”

Draco shrugs, and stands. “I know you’ve changed. I just can’t figure out if it was before or after you joined this little team.”

“Civilization as we know it might end. I thought it a good idea to lend a hand,” Neville says, though he’s thinking about what his parents sacrificed in the last war, and his Gran, and how disappointed they’d be if he just sat back and watched. His parents will never be proud of him, but he can hope that his Gran will be, after all this.

“Ah,” Draco says, as if that clarifies everything.

“Two on one?” Ginny asks, coming in through the doorway. She’s still got a bruise above her right eyebrow from the last skirmish. “Sorry, Filch’s in the halls.”

“Yes,” Neville says. “Let’s.”

 

+

 

“Neville?” Neville opens his eyes, and Draco’s turned his head to the side, eyes open as he peers over at Neville. He must’ve fallen asleep in his chair.

Neville yawns, rubbing his eyes. “You’re awake,” he says. There’s surprise in his voice.

“Looks that way, yes,” Draco says, and even manages an eye-roll. “How long have I been out?”

“Feverish for three days, I’d say.” He scoots the chair closer, and puts his hand on Draco’s forehead. Draco sucks in a quick breath, but his forehead is cool. “Your fever’s broken now, anyway.” And he’d slept through it. “How d’you feel?”

“Bloody awful,” Draco says, voice scratchy and hoarse. Then he snorts derisively at himself. “Thirsty. Back’s burning like a bitch. I’ll live.”

“Here,” Neville says, and holds out a cup of water he’d left on the bedside table earlier. Draco reaches out with his right hand, and then stiffens, looking at his thumb, curled into his palm. He pauses for a moment, like he’s considering, but grabs the cup with his left.

“Thanks,” Draco says, and doesn’t mention the hand. He takes a sip of water, and then downs the rest in three quick swallows. Neville watches his throat work and wonders if he should ask Draco about the cut tendon or let him repress it.

“Hold still,” he says, instead of commenting. “I’ve got to clean your back.” Draco nods, and Neville peels down the covers, uncurling the bandages from around Draco’s chest, back, and stomach. The inflammation is receding nicely, skin knitting slowly. He’s gotten used to doing all this one-handed – his left arm is still bound against his side, mostly immobile.

“How’s it look, Doc?” Draco says, obviously aiming for a joke.

“You’ll live,” Neville says. Neither of them laugh.

 

+

 

Neville hisses as Madam Pomfrey unwraps the gauze from around his bicep, and prods at the three seeping cuts with the tip of her wand. They run vertically down the length of his upper arm, the result of one of Draco’s nastier hexes. It hadn’t even hit him full on. They’re getting into more dangerous stuff now, though Neville can’t pretend it’s not necessary.

“What did you say you did again?” she asks, scowling down at the torn skin.

“Tripped in Greenhouse 3,” Neville says, happily enough. Any other year, that may have been the case. Greenhouse 3 is where most of the dangerous stuff is, though Sprout lets Neville in and out at will. Neville’s had to come to the hospital wing more than a few times in the past few years for just that sort of thing. Madam Pomfrey must be used to it, because she just clucks her tongue at him and waves her wand. She doesn’t have to say an incantation at this point, but Neville can still feel the skin knitting itself up, leaving three faint white lines behind. His second permanent scars – the first being the thin line on his lip where he’d bit through the skin falling off a balcony when he was seven. His Gran had refused to heal it, probably to deter him from being so clumsy again.

“You be careful, Neville. Don’t want you getting into any real trouble this year, what with the war.”

“I’ll try my best, Madam Pomfrey,” he says, and he will. The last thing he wants to do is get seriously injured before he even graduates.

There’s plenty of time for that afterward.

 

+

 

Neville’s puttering around in the kitchen, putting away newly dried herbs and plants for potions. It’s not extremely important work, but he’s learned to force himself to be organized. Otherwise he can never find anything. Ron and Harry had come back early that morning with minor scrapes – and two broken fingers, for Ron – but nothing serious, and had gone immediately to sleep. Neville’s been spending most of the past few days keeping himself from worrying about them by making too much tea and watching Draco go slowly crazy at the prospect of being bedridden for so long. He’s glad to have them home. Draco, for his part, had finally been let up after breakfast and Neville hasn’t seen him since.

A flash of silver light outside the back window sets Neville on alert. He has his wand out before he can blink, though when he looks out the back window, he sees Draco, stripped to a pair of loose pajama pants and the bandages around his chest and back, holding his wand in his left hand. Neville’s not sure what the spell was, but Draco’s breathing hard like it took a lot out of him. Or like he’s been practicing for a long time already.

He can see the way Draco bites his lip, weighing the wand in his hand like something unfamiliar, brow knitting in concentration. Neville’s not sure what he’s trying to cast, but he can understand the impulse to try. He curls the fingers of his good hand into the window frame, short nails digging into the unpainted wood, and then leaves the house through the back door, shutting it quietly behind him. Draco doesn’t look over.

This close, Neville sees the sheen of sweat on Draco’s face and chest, the way it shines in the hollows of his collarbones. Draco holds the wand out, again, swishing it in the air. Neville wants to stand behind him, guide his arm with a hand on his wrist, feel the warmth from his body. He won’t do it, though, unless asked. And Draco isn’t usually one to ask.

“Are you just going to stand there and watch?” Draco’s tone isn’t anything but flippant, and he keeps his eyes on his wand.

“You seem to be doing just fine,” Neville says. He watches the careful way Draco inhales and exhales, and he wonders if just breathing pulls at the gashes in Draco’s back.

“Bollocks,” Draco says, and there’s that hint of bite in his voice. “I’m know I’m bloody wretched, even if you’re too fucking nice to say anything about it.”

“Draco.” He forces his voice calm and even. Draco glances over, and Neville can see the way his eyes hesitate on Neville’s face. “You’ve only just gotten out of bed for the first time. Be patient.”

Draco snorts. “Easy for you to say.” He pauses, eyes tracking down to the cast on Neville’s arm and then flicking back up to his face. “Yours isn’t even your dominant hand.”

“Good thing, too. I’m twice as useless as you without my wand hand.” Draco winces, half-suppressed, but it’s the truth. Draco, at least, could manage, though with little finesse.

“Shut up, Longbottom,” Draco says, and it’s the first time he’s called Neville by his surname in at least eight months. “Would you just – get over here and help me.”

It’s not a question. Neville goes.

 

+

 

“Congratulations,” Hermione says, from the doorway. Neville looks up from the medical textbook Gran had smuggled to him, and blinks, confused. She’s got snow melting in her hair; it’s supposed to be spring, but they’re too far north at the moment for it to be anything resembling warm, yet.

“What are you congratulating me for?”

“Today’s the day we would’ve graduated.” Hermione shakes her head, laughing a little. “You know, if things had turned out differently. I had it marked in my diary in red ink. To remind myself.”

Neville slides his bookmark into the text and closes it with a soft thump. “I didn’t actually think we’d make it this far,” he says, before he thinks better of it.

“What, you thought You-Know-Who would have killed us off by now?” She’s joking, mostly, but gallows humor has never been Neville’s favorite.

“Something like that,” he says, because he hasn’t imagined his own death nearly as often as he’s imagined theirs. Possibly because that seems worse, to him – he’s not meant to be the last one left. He hopes he never will be.

“Me, too,” Hermione says, and smiles at him. “Not that we’d be dead, just that I never really thought he’d wait until graduation.” Hermione’s probably talking about You-Know-Who and his attack on Hogwarts, but Neville can’t quite reconcile that the words could describe Harry’s impatience just as well. “It would be too – tidy.”

Neville nods, but doesn’t say anything. After all this, maybe they’ll get the chance to go back and finish the year. Maybe they won’t. He knows what he hopes for.

 

+

 

Draco’s grip is warm in Neville’s hand, and he’s standing close enough to feel the heat from Draco’s back where he’s almost touching his chest. This is their third day of practice, and Neville hasn’t done anything rash yet.

“Good,” he says, when Draco’s hex hits the target – one of the pine trees fringing the back yard, Ron’s sloppily painted bullseye half cut away from target practice with sharp hexes. “You’re getting better.”

“Slowly,” Draco says, voice dry. “Very slowly.”

“Better than not at all.” Neville knows that he’s exasperatingly reasonable; he knows that it irritates everyone, sometimes even Hermione, but someone has to be. Someone has to be reasonable when the rest of the team is likely to fly off the handle right into the path of danger.

Draco turns, his wrist sliding out of Neville’s grasp. They feel closer, with Draco facing him, Draco’s breath on his chin. “You are so infuriating,” Draco says, and kisses him. It’s searing, surprising, and Neville wants to freeze, but Draco won’t let him. Draco tangles his good hand, his left hand, in Neville’s hair and tugs; Neville can feel Draco’s wand pressing hard against the back of his head where Draco’s still clutching it in his fist. Neville opens for Draco, helplessly, lets Draco deepen the kiss, his mouth sloppy and rushed, forceful. The sound Neville makes is something trapped between a whine and a moan.

Draco bites into Neville’s lower lip, hard, teeth sharp, and then pulls back. His hand is still in Neville’s hair, and he pulls again, a short tug, before letting go completely. His eyes catch on Neville’s mouth, and Neville licks his lips before he thinks about it. Draco’s cheeks are flushed high up on his cheekbones, and his t-shirt is sticking to his chest, pupils dilated in a way that makes him look aroused, hungry, and slightly shocky.

Neville presses his good hand to the center of Draco’s chest, curls his fingers into the damp material. He can feel Draco’s pulse under his hand, Draco’s heart saying _alive, I’m alive_ , pushing blood under his skin.

“I –” Neville starts, but Draco just leans forward and kisses him again, soft chaste. Neville holds him close with the hand in his shirt, and doesn’t let him pull back, licking at his lips, instead, until Draco opens his mouth, lets him in. Neville hums, because he’s wanted this, he’s _wanted_ this. Draco gasps, and Neville flattens his palm against Draco’s chest, so he can feel that pulse pick up, speeding against the tips of his fingers.

He pulls away when his lungs start to burn, and pushes his face into the crook of Draco’s neck, where he can smell Draco’s sweat, and breathe in, and not have to say anything.

“Okay?” Draco says, after a moment, his good hand settling on Neville’s lower back, half on cotton and half on the slice of skin where his shirt’s ridden up.

“Okay,” Neville says, mumbled against Draco’s skin. He tightens his fingers into Draco’s shirt and doesn’t let go.

 

+

 

“Luna says another 14 disappeared, and 10 more bodies found,” Neville calls out of the library. They’re only in this safe house for another day before they have to move on. Neville’s going to miss the extensive library.

“Anyone we know?” Ron asks, not looking away from Ginny. They’re circling each other, sparring in the living room. Neville knows that the Weaselys would disapprove, but no one lives here anymore besides them, and it’s not like all of their fights are going to happen in the open, anyway.

“Don’t think so,” Neville says. They get most of their news from Luna, her father’s paper and the coded owls she sends Neville. She’d been one of the ones not so lucky during the Death Eaters’ attack on Hogwarts. They’d had to amputate her right leg from the knee down, not that there’d been much of it left. Still, she was alive, unlike Terry, or Lavender, or Hannah. Still making herself useful any way she could.

“That’s good,” Ginny says, slightly out of breath, and it should strike Neville how callous they are about the whole thing. Not one of theirs, so it’s fine. But he can’t imagine trying to make himself feel every death – there’d be nothing of him left, and he knows they need him.

If he makes it through this, if any of them do, they can feel the guilt then. They can mourn then. There’s no time for it now.

 

+

 

Neville grits his teeth, pulling the last stitch closed, holding his arm steady against the pain. He’s got his leg propped up on a chair, trousers cut away high up on his thigh, blood drying crusty around the gash, which starts next to his knee and travels halfway up his leg.

“Draco,” he gets out, “would you – fetch the alcohol for me, please?” Draco’s standing in the doorway, his lips pressed into a thin line, but he goes to the cupboard anyway, and pulls out the gauze pads, the half-used bottle of alcohol with his left hand. The right is still motionless at his side. Neville hisses when he presses soaked gauze against the cut, but he doesn’t protest.

The mission hadn’t gone badly, exactly, they’d just had more company than expected. They’d gotten what they’d gone for, and that’s what really matters. Neville’s just glad that he’s the only one hurt – he’d rather patch himself up, all things considered, than any one of the others. There are only two weeks left until the equinox. Two weeks until everything is over, for good or for bad. Neville would rather that most of their party remain uninjured until then, at least.

Draco sits heavily next to him, and watches as he binds the leg up with bandages – stained from previous use, but clean. They’d probably even been used to bind Draco’s back, at some point.

When Neville finishes, tying the bandages tight enough to feel the knot pressing against his inner thigh, Draco touches the bandaged leg with gentle, careful fingers, and leans his head on Neville’s shoulder. He doesn’t say anything, though Neville can tell he wants to.

“I’m fine,” Neville says. “It looks worse than it is.”

“Mm-hm,” Draco hums his reply, his tone unhappy but resigned. “Just try not to do it again.”

“I’ll do my best,” Neville says. And he will. He’ll do his best.


End file.
